Is the Elder God Health affected by the number of board expansions in play?

Question

We have been playing that the number of board expansions does not effect the successes required to defeat the elder god, as it does not seem in the spirit of the rule. The rules seem to back this up but do not explicitly state it.

Successes Required to Defeat the Elder God: When the Elder God wakes the number of successes is set to the number of Players(I take this to mean agents if some players are playing more then 1) times the number of spaces elder gods doom track.

Combining Multiple Expansions: "The rules are unchanged when using more than one expansion city, except that the number of players should be counted as being one less for each expansion board in play beyond the first. So, if six players are playing a game using both Dunwich and Innsmouth (for a total of two expansion cities), they are counted as having one less player, for a total of five players. This modified number of players is used for such things as the monster limit and the maximum number of gates that can be open at once, and it reduces the level of difficulty for the players since they have so much more ground to cover"

Answer 1

I'm of the same mindset. The final battle's difficulty shouldn't change based on how many boards there were to run around on; the battle isn't any harder because there was more space to run around on, things to get done, etc. There's just as many opportunities to gain weapons and spells, why should the fight be any harder? There was a thread on this topic on the Fantasy Flight messages boards some time ago, but I can't seem to find it.

Edit: Here we go! From the Kevin Wilson answers thread on the forum.

[KH] 10. While using Kingsport and Dunwich together you count the # of Investigators as one less for monster limit, outskirts, etc. due to there being so much ground to cover. I take it this does not apply to the number of successes needed to remove a doom token in the final battle? (06/13/08) Correct. Otherwise the final fight would be a lot easier than intended.

-Kevin Wilson Fantasy Flight Games